The Multiform O9A

The Occult cognoscenti have long understood that the Order of Nine Angles (O9A, ONA) is a multiform nexion. That its presencings of ‘acausal energies’ in the causal – via individuals, traditional and offshoot nexions; via propaganda, polemics, mythos, a Labyrinthos Mythologicus, and other means – are outward and multifaceted and just potentially or actually useful causal forms or ideations. That, esoterically, the O9A re-presents and thus reveals what is beyond all such causal forms, past, present, and future, and thus is neither of the Western Left Hand Path nor of the Western Right Hand Path because

“both the LHP (‘the sinister’) and the RHP (‘the numinous’) are themselves causal abstractions – ideations – which hide both our own nature, the nature (the physis) of other living beings, and the nature of Reality itself.” {1}

For the O9A provides the individual with an opportunity

“to develop a perception, an understanding, a knowledge – acquired from a personal experience – beyond causal abstractions/forms and thus beyond denotatum; that is, and for example, beyond the illusion of conflicting/ideated opposites, beyond naming/denoting/words, beyond abstract morality, beyond dogma/ideology, beyond the simple principle of causation, and beyond the simplicity of a posited dialectical process.” {1}

This is the personal knowledge of Lapis Philosophicus {2} and thus of “the balancing of the masculous with the muliebral (the sinisterly-numinous) through pathei-mathos both Occult and exoteric.” {3} Which knowledge is of “the living unity beyond the abstract, the lifeless, division and dialectic of contrasting/abstractive/ideated opposites. A division most obvious in the false dichotomy of good and evil, and a division not so obvious in denotatum.” {4}

For among the truths

“which initiates of the O9A mystic (or the ‘sinisterly-numinous’) tradition personally discover are (i) the unity – the mundus, the Being – beyond the apparent opposites of ‘sinister’ and ‘numinous’, of causal/acausal, of masculous/muliebral, a unity indescribable by ordinary language but apprehensible by esoteric languages and a particular manner of living, and (ii) the transient, temporal, nature of human manufactured causal abstractions and ideations.” {4}

Which is why, for example,

“one of the axioms of the esoteric philosophy of the O9A is that it is really only possible to apprehend the realm of the acausal (which realm includes but is not limited to the supernatural) by using our (mostly latent) human faculty of empathy – of empathic wordless knowing – and by developing new faculties, such as the one the O9A term acausal-thinking.” {4}

and why the O9A praxis termed The Seven Fold Way cultivates, through Rites such as that of Internal Adept and Occult Arts such as The Star Game and Esoteric Chant, the faculties of empathy, of acausal-thinking, and the enantiodromia – the Arrenothelus (ἀρρενόθηλυς) or the melding, the balancing – of the masculous with the muliebral which can result from the traditional chthonic Rite of the Abyss. {5}

A Personal Anados

While the majority of modern Occultists – and especially self-described ‘satanists’ – have either pretended that the “O9A does not exist” or have focused on or become fixated with the outer, multiform, nature(s) of the O9A such as for example the causal form termed ‘satanism’, the Occult cognoscenti have understood that the esoteric essence of the O9A is the individual and difficult quest for Lapis Philosophicus by means such as The Seven Fold Way. An essence described, by the pseudonymous Anton Long, almost three decades ago:

“We see our way as guiding a few individuals to self-awareness, to Adeptship and beyond, via various practical and magickal techniques. The emphasis is on guide, on self-development, on self-discovery. There is no religious attitude, no acceptance of someone else’s authority.” {6}

Such sparse revelations – such gems – did not, of course, in the intervening years prevent self-described ‘satanists’ and others from continuing their anti-O9A crusade based on their assumptions regarding the outer, multiform, natures of the O9A, since

“to access the inner core, an individual has to work their way through the outer layers which, together, form a labyrinth; a labyrinth so labyrinthine that it is easy for a person to become confused, lose their way, or (more usually) just give up. Some individuals, however, inspired (or re-inspired) as they are by the O9A mythos, do succeed. Thus there is, for every candidate – every potential member of the O9A kindred – an initial test, involving them navigating the labyrinth on their own, without any guidance.

What they find – to the dismay of many – is nothing mysterious or ‘satanic’ or exceptional or difficult to understand or even really secret. For it is only (i) a particular pagan mysticism, and (ii) a particular way of life, and (iii) an individual occult journey (an anados) that will last for several decades, and a journey and a way of life which, if they embark upon them, will take them from ‘the sinister’ toward ‘the numinous’ and thence toward what is beyond both those causal forms.” {7}

But now, since the esoteric essence of the O9A is more widely known – partly due to essays, such revelations, as this and partly through the works, such revelations, noted in the references below – the grammatical tense of the above quotation should perhaps be altered so that it reads “an individual had to work their way through…..There was, for every candidate….”

However, despite such revelations, the majority of modern Occultists – and especially self-described ‘satanists’, and even academics studying modern Western esotericism – remain fixated on (i) the so-called ‘satanism’ of Howard Stanton Levey {8} and (ii) on the outer, multiform, natures of the O9A.

Which, of course, serves to highlight yet again the difference not only between the O9A and other manifestations of modern Occultism, but also between what the O9A assert satanism is and what self-described ‘satanists’, following or inspired by the likes of Howard Stanton Levey and Michael Aquino, believe ‘satanism’ to be.

For the O9A, satanism – in the context of esoterically understanding the O9A – is a practical, an exeatic, defiance: an initiate pathei-mathos, a learning experience, where one exults

“in life itself: a sinister life is, or should be, one where there is an intensity; where there is action, in the world; where there is a will harnessed to a goal – any goal; a desire to experience, to know; to quest; where there is an arrogant determination to not accept the norms, the answers, the limits of and set by others.

Nothing is too dangerous for us; nothing is forbidden. We experience to test ourselves; to learn.

There is a pushing of one’s body to – and beyond – its limits; enduring, to go beyond endurance to that wonderful bliss of almost exhaustion when a goal has been achieved and one has felt, been, an exquisite harmony of mind and body and ethos through sheer concentration on what is being done.

There is the acceptance of challenges – especially by ourselves. And if we have no challenges, we make or create some.” {9}

That is, it is an initiate pathei-mathos, a learning experience, which one, via a praxis (an anados) such as The Seven Fold Way, moves on from: toward Lapis Philosophicus.
Yet, for those following or inspired by the likes of Howard Stanton Levey, satanism is just a euphemism for egoistic fantasies and for a life-long wallowing in a mundane self-indulgence.

In respect of enantiodromia and Rite of the Abyss, qv. the O9A text Enantiodromia – The Sinister Abyssal Nexion. The text is included in the 1460 page, 55 Mb pdf compilation Complete Guide To The Order of Nine Angles, Seventh Edition, 2015, which is a complete guide to the O9A’s traditional, complex, and initiatory Seven Fold Way. The text is (as of February 2018 ev) available at https://omega9alpha.wordpress.com/2014/04/09/the-definitive-guide-to-the-order-of-nine-angles/

{6} Letter from ‘Anton Long’ to Michael Aquino of the Temple of Set, dated 20th October 1990 ev. The typewritten letter was published in facsimile in The Satanic Letters of Stephen Brown, Thormynd Press, 1992, volume I.

{7} R. Parker. O9A Esotericism: An Initiated Apprehension, e-text, 2014. The text is included in the book The Pagan Order Of Nine Angles, ISBN 9781518885143.

{8} That no one, outside of the O9A, seems to use the real name of ‘Anton LaVey’ when discussing modern ‘satanism’ is interesting, indicative, and somewhat amusing.

{9} Anton Long. The Joy Of The Sinister. 114yf. The text is included in the book The Joy Of The Sinister: The Traditional Satanism Of The Order Of Nine Angles, CreateSpace, 2015, ISBN 9781518679001.